


Where the love light gleams

by Emilys_List



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Eve, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family, Pining, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 13:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8891857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilys_List/pseuds/Emilys_List
Summary: A story of work and family, with a splash of Christmas and longing.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaeveBran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBran/gifts).



1\. Christmas Eve, 1972

He sips water from a glass dressed up like a gin and tonic. It's Christmas Eve in a DC bar, filled with plucky government employees that have enough money to drink but not enough to make it home. Multi-colored lights are strung across the mirror behind the bar, and it's almost beautiful. But he's not supposed to be losing his eye to lights.

Elizabeth sits in front of him at the bar proper. From his vantage point at a highboy table, he has a good view. She laughs, tossing the dark brown curls of her wig over her shoulder, and lays a hand over Michael's. Michael Adderly, the Senate committee staffer with access to a forthcoming anti-war amendment. They give these kids so much power. Michael looks dumb in the wake of Elizabeth's Jane, a young woman new to D.C. in a tight sweater.

His eyes sweep the bar, always watching for anyone who takes too much notice, whose eyes linger. Anyone like him. Despite Elizabeth's rapt attention on Michael, she's still aware of her partner in her periphery, looking for their signs.

Elizabeth-as-Jane leans over the bar to get the bartender's attention. Philip catches Michael staring at her ass in her tight blue jeans. That's a good if predictable sign. She certainly doesn't look like a woman who's had two children. She turns back to Michael with a pen and takes his hand in hers, writing her phone number on his hand. She catches it before he draws back and strokes his wrist, pressing her thumb to his pulse. He can't hear what she's saying but he knows the script and stage directions well enough.

He watches her leave, watches Michael watching her leave. Michael orders one more drink before stumbling out, and Philip follows at a distance, buttoning his coat and turning up his collar against the chill. When Michael disappears into the Metro, Philip drops the tail, doubling back to the bar. He gets into the car, where Elizabeth is already seated in the passenger's side, eyes alert.

At home they relieve Ellen, half-asleep in the living room. She's getting older, but is still a top field operative. She rises to greet them. "How did it go?" she asks, stifling a yawn.

Elizabeth shakes her hair out again, a habit of wig aftermath. "He'll be useful. He's... eager. We'll have access within a couple of weeks." She hangs her purse and jacket on the rack, and Philip follows suit. "How were they for you?"

Ellen's lovely lined face creases in smile. "Oh, we had fun. Henry was down without too much fuss, and Paige and I played Candyland. She's a sharp one."

He walks Ellen out and from the closed front door sees Elizabeth in the kitchen, hands on the island, looking like she'd float away if she wasn't attached to something. She tells him she'll contact The Center, and heads to the laundry room.

He turns out the lights across the first floor, heading upstairs. He stands in the hallway listening and only hears the answer of silence from his children's bedrooms, wanting to see their sleeping faces but wanting more for them to stay asleep.

In his bedroom he strips off clothes that reek of cigarettes and stale beer. He rinses his body then steps into pajamas, falling into bed, more tired with increasing minutes. He notices that Elizabeth has not yet come to bed, then he's out. 

2\. Christmas, 1972 

He feels the tugging before he hears the whisper, the filibustering repetition of, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." He opens his eyes and turns his head. "Daddy, you're awake. It's Christmas. We need to open presents. Daddy." He reaches out and ruffles her hair. She knows which parent is a sucker for such cajoling. He casts an eye to a still-sleeping Elizabeth.

She takes his hand as he gets out of bed, as they quietly leave the bedroom. As soon as she's in the hall she exclaims, "I can't wait!" Together he and Paige head downstairs. She will not be a fan of the clothes, the utilitarian articles that Elizabeth insisted be included. He reaches around their fake tree to turn on the lights. Her face glows. It's magic, simply put.

Elizabeth joins them with Henry in her arms, squirming to get down. She releases him and he toddles to the tree, to where his sister is organizing gifts based on recipient.

He makes coffee and gets a garbage bag for torn wrapping paper. Elizabeth sits on the couch and lays out rules: first Paige opens a present, then Henry, repeat. Paige is impatient with Henry's high interest in the paper and packaging over toys and books, and she "helps" him.

The scene unfolds, unbearably foreign, so divorced from anything he or Elizabeth knew as children. The excess bothers her, he can see her twitching as they open their gifts, but this is as much a part of their cover as anything else.

In school Paige made presents for her parents, the only ones they'll receive. A loop of string laden with uncooked pasta for Elizabeth, a popsicle stick photo frame for Philip. He marvels at her skills of assemblage and direction-following like they produced a marble statue.

Paige is wearing her new pink cowboy hat, idly paging through Henry's new picture book when she asks, "Why don't we go to a grandpa or grandma's house for Christmas?"

They exchange looks. They've prepared for this. With practiced woe, Elizabeth says, "Your grandparents aren't here anymore. As much as we wish they were."

Paige pauses to weigh that. "Dawn in my class goes to her grandma's house."

Dawn isn't any kind of name. Americans. He tells her that Dawn is very lucky, and also that it's time for pancakes.

There's not much he can accomplish in the kitchen, but he's a modern man, so pancakes it is. He ladles three small pools of batter onto the stove, and waits.

He looks over to his family, sitting on the floor by the tree. Henry, held tight in Elizabeth's arms, sits in her lap, with Paige slumped against her side. The consumerism, like a sugar rush, has crashed. In a rare moment of tenderness, a macaroni necklace-clad Elizabeth reads from The Giving Tree and for a moment, their children listen, the lights from the tree making them all glow like something holy.

He loves his family. That's not a part of his assignment, but he does. These small humans he created, with their own smiles and wails and cries, and someday soon hopes and drives and fears. They don't know their purpose and there's an elegant simplicity in that.

Henry is charmed by something in the book and claps his hands in delight. It makes Elizabeth laugh, and her eyes dart to catch Philip's. She genuinely smiles at him, a gift for him as a person, her husband.

He's a secret keeper by profession, but he has one he'd never reveal to The Center: he loves her. It didn't start that way, but it built slowly over the years until it reached a peak and plateau, and now he lives in his love for her, waiting for her to love him back.

It's okay; this assignment could last a lifetime. He can wait.

He burns the first batch of pancakes.

/end.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I'll Be Home For Christmas"


End file.
